PRESIDENT MASARYK TELLS HIS STORY
Vienna: he said there was a bridge there which must
be made of india-rubber, because it was so springy
when people walked or rode over it. We used to
call the Czechs the "dear gentlemen," because
they were always saying "my dear!" About Prague
I learned for the first time from a children's book
called The Little One's Heritage \ there it described
how a certain roving family drove in a cart to Prague,
and how beautiful Prague was. I felt myself to be a
Slovak. My grandmother in Kopcany always used
to bring me white Slovak trousers as a present, but
I was dressed like the town boys. When I went
to the modern college to study, they had a suit
made for me out of my father's old coachman's
livery; it was blue with brass buttons—at Hustopee
the boys did laugh at me so 1
Hodonin was a great city to me, because it had
a church steeple, while at Cejkovice there was only
a belfry, the church had no steeple. I knew Hustopec
quite early too; my mother's people lived there.
Once I went there to the annual fair; my uncle
had given me a whole sixpence, and I bought
myself a paint-box; there were cakes of colour and
a paint-brush all complete in a wooden box. On
the way home a storm came on. The rain came
down in torrents; I hugged my paint-box under
my arm, under my coat, under my shirt even, to
keep it dry. When I got home I had colours all